Familiar Faces: The P.T. Anderson Players

We're celebrating PTA this week for his 50th birthday!

by Nathaniel R

Famed auteur Paul Thomas Anderson is not, perhaps, the creature of habit we expected him to be after his first three films made him a legend-to-be and suggested a steady stable of actors shifting guises with each film like a Scorsese or an Altman or an Allen. Since that magnum ensemble opus Magnolia (1999) his films have shifted closer to the traditional one or two man focal point employed by most auteurs even as they've gotten more experimental in other ways. It's as if he was purposefully shaking off the Altman-progeny tag.

That's a wee bit disappointing since auteurs who are particularly genius at assembling a whole mess of actors and watching the idiosyncratic group dymanic spark are few and far between. With PTA's next project set to be a drama about a famous child actor in high school, it's unlikely we'll see many repeats from his troupe, though there's always a possibility one or two of them show up as a teacher or parent or co-star on set.  Let's look at the actors he's used the most in his filmography thus far...

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1957: Harriet Andersson in "Smiles of a Summer Night"

Before the next Smackdown, Nick Taylor will be visiting some "alternates" to the Supporting Actress Ballot.

Existence, am I right? Being alive? Inhabiting a physical form and experiencing things until we inevitably pass from this mortal coil? Few filmmakers have captured the ache of true, unbearable unhappiness with oneself, with love, with God, with time, with humanity itself like Ingmar Bergman did.

Yes, he did more than just contemplative, psychologically precise, wholly accessible dramas, like the fantastical, expansive, occasionally harrowing depiction of childhood in Fanny and Alexander. Still, who would expect the auteur behind Through a Glass Darkly and Cries and Whispers (truly one of the most upsetting films to watch under self-isolated quarantine) to make a bedroom farce as light and entertaining as Smiles of a Summer Night? The sheer fact of Smiles is almost as surprising as the narrative, which artfully succeeds at being funny and sexy while wrapping itself around ideas of human behavior that fit neatly into Bergman’s filmography...

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Spike Lee's underrated gems

by Cláudio Alves

It seems like Spike Lee's on everybody's mind these days. First and foremost, we have the release of the director's latest feature, Da 5 Bloods, to thank for such cultural prominence. However, it would be irresponsible not to mention how current events are also bringing people to this filmmaker's oeuvre. In a time when racial injustice is being actively protested on the streets, the Black excellence and political vigor of Spike Lee's movies seem more relevant than ever…

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Horror Actressing: Marcia Gay Harden in "The Mist"

by Jason Adams

If you've ever been a big fan of a book that's been turned into a movie then you have probably known the eyebrow-singeing sensation of a book character getting cast by an actor that seems so correct, so perfect for the role, that it astonishes. Think of Alan Rickman playing Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, or of Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter in the admittedly ill-fated Golden Compass movie -- these actors were already the faces you were picturing when you read the book, and seeing the movie get it right this way, it's always a buzz.

I both did and did not experience this sensation when Frank Darabont hired Marcia Gay Harden to play the character of Christian super-bitch Mrs. Carmody in his 2007 adaptation of my all-time favorite Stephen King story, The Mist.

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Pride Month Doc Corner: 'Welcome to Chechnya' is brave, confronting cinema

Doc Corner is celebrating Pride Month with a focus on documentaries that tackle LGBTIQ themes. This week we are looking at the latest film from the Oscar-nominated director of How to Survive a Plague.

By Glenn Dunks

We may find ourselves every June celebrating “pride”, but it is important to remember that it started from a fireball of anger. A fist of societal and cultural agitation that in a single moment decided it was going to fight back against oppression and violence. It may be more than 50 years later, but it’s an unfortunate fact that even in the most modern of societies, people who identify as LGBTIQ or non-binary still face the world with varying degrees of awareness about our otherness. And while many may not choose to dwell on it, there is the ever-present knowledge that those like us around the world are being bullied, harassed, targeted, punished, hunted and killed on a daily basis --and that’s before we get into when sexuality and gender identity intersect with race, religion and nationality.

It’s hardly hidden but it can be easily neglected, which is where a film like David France’s Welcome to Chechnya comes in...

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